


You do the math, you expect the trouble

by catteo



Category: Savages (2012), Savages - All Media Types, Savages Series - Don Winslow
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 06:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2803688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catteo/pseuds/catteo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And, for a while, I thought I was the princess,<br/>cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room, in the tower of the castle,<br/>young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you with confidence.<br/>But the princess looks into her mirror and only sees the princess,<br/>while I’m out here, slogging through the mud, breathing fire,<br/>and getting stabbed to death.<br/>Okay, so I’m the dragon. Big deal.<br/>You still get to be the hero.</p><p>-- Richard Siken</p>
            </blockquote>





	You do the math, you expect the trouble

**Author's Note:**

  * For [waltzmatildah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/gifts).



> A Yuletide treat!

 

1

 

Why the fuck shouldn’t she tell you the truth?

 

 

 

 

2

 

The question, really, isn’t _if_ my story is true, but whether you choose to believe it.

 

I’m sure that by now you know my name. A version of it, anyway. I’m certain that you know my face. You probably think that you know _me_.

 

               You’re wrong.

 

You only see my perfect SoCal tan, golden skin with a dusting of bronze, topped off with sun-bleached hair, and a pretty face. Dolphins dance up my arm, a delicate embrace, and I can tell what you’re thinking.

 

_Beautiful_

 

  


               (That’s not vanity talking. It’s just the truth. O has the ‘Miss Orange Country’ crown from four years in a row to prove it. Paqu was so proud of that, and O wasn’t old enough to know better. The fifth year was the year she met _them_ , and realised that you don’t need to whore yourself out to be loved.)

 

  


You shake your head and decide that I was just another dumb blonde who should have known better. You’re predictable. 

You’re boring.

 

  


               But you’re not alone.

 

 

 

 

3

 

I met Chon first.

 

 

 

 

4

 

It’s a statement of fact, nothing more. It’s not as though it affects anything that came before.

 

               Or after.

 

But it’s important all the same.

 

 

 

 

5

  
  
**EXT. SCHOOL PLAYGROUND - DAY.**

** There are kids running WILD around the YARD. Focus in on the MONKEY-BARS where a young OPHELIA is standing ARMS CROSSED in front of CHON. **

** O **

** I don’t understand why I have to be saved. **

****

** CHON **

** Because you’re a princess, and I’m your knight in shining armor. And those are the rules. **

****

** O **

** What if I don’t want to live by the rules? Mom always says that rules are meant to be broken.  **

****

** CHON **

** Well, I guess I can be the dragon. If you want. **

****

** O **

** Do you still save me? **

****

** CHON **

** No. I think that if I’m the dragon then you have to save yourself. **

 

And it seems as though she’s been doing that all her life.

 

 

 

 

6

 

O is dragged from the warm embrace of sleep at four in the morning. It’s still dark out, dawn casting nothing but the slightest suggestion of gold across the ocean. Ben’s curled up at her side, long legs tangled in hers, hand slung carelessly across her chest. She tangles her fingers in his and presses a soft kiss to his palm.

 

Chon’s nowhere to be seen.

 

This isn’t the first time it’s happened – Chon abandoning them in the hours before dawn. She’s not worried.

 

  


               (O doesn’t believe in worrying. Chon taught her that. Action and reaction. It’s all that matters. They hit; you hit back harder. They shoot; you massacre. They taught him that back in I-Rock-and-Roll. After he became the dragon.)

 

               Ben doesn’t even stir in his sleep as she slides out from under him, pressing a soft kiss to his jaw.

 

 

 

 

7

 

Chon’s sitting exactly where she expects.

  


  
               Staring out at the ocean.

 

  
She wonders how he ever managed to survive in the desert.

 

 

 

 

8

 

It’s a fucking joke.

 

  


               (That’s what O thinks as she watches Chon pull a gun to pieces and slide them back together in under thirty seconds)

 

Chon, of all people, shouldn’t have to live like this. He served his time and he got the fuck out and O isn’t about to let him enlist in another battle where there are nothing but losing sides.

 

  


                              (O knows a thing or two about loss.

 

  


She’s not sure if it was Two or Three that had Paqu doubting her own invincibility. O was a different girl back then, all soft curves and gentle smiles. O remembers the nanny. Sadie. Or Sandy.

 

  


It doesn’t seem to matter now.

 

  


               Paqu came home with new boobs and a disgruntled attitude.

 

  


O sat on the front step and waited for a ride that never came; she finally realised that she was an afterthought, a casualty of war)

 

She slides her hands across his shoulders, tracing the firm ridges of muscle down his arms, before her fingers hit cold, hard metal. Fear dances an icy finger down her spine as she waits, barely breathing, for Chon to release his grip on the gun.

 

 

 

 

9

 

  


                              Chon always knew she’d be the one to save him.

 

 

 

 

10

 

You don’t know what you’re prepared to do for another person until they’re bleeding out in front of you.

 

               Glass shatters across the floor and it’s a warzone come suddenly to life.

 

Chon ducks and rolls, years of training letting instinct take over. It would be funny if there weren’t three perfect circles punched across his torso. O slams her hands across his chest, blood running

_thick_

  


and fast

across her fingers.

 

A scream rips through the air and she doesn’t even recognise her own voice.

 

 

 

 

11

 

It shouldn’t happen here.

  
               I’m sick of hearing it.

  
A platitude poised on the tip of everyone’s tongue, as though Paqu has schooled them all in the art of being…

  
Being Paqu.

  


 

 

                              You don’t know it but this time?

               I’m the fucking hero.

 

 

 

 

12

 

               Ben doesn’t understand.

  


Of course not.

 

                              Ben is peace and love and happiness. All the things O used to be.

 

But then their knight got taken by a pawn, and it’s just the queen and her castle.

  


               O appreciates the poetry, but she knows that

Ben doesn’t

fucking

get it.

 

They had a dragon and now they’ve got nothing but empty threats, and somebody needs to finish this.

               (She’s going to save them all.)

 

 

 

 

13

 

They think that she’s innocent.

  


               What a fucking joke.

Innocence is something that only fools and children can afford.

 

 

O is neither.

 

 

She walks into the lion’s den, fingers wrapped around the smooth metal of Chon’s gun. It’s poetry in fucking motion. Chon would be proud.

 

                              The gun is cold as ice in her grip, but breathing fire, and the destruction it wreaks is absolute.

 

 

 

  


_Flawless._

 

 

14

 

Chon comes home on a Tuesday. The windows are new, the floor meticulously swept. O offers him a tremulous smile as he walks through the door. She doesn’t wait for him to sit, peels off his clothes as he stands by the couch that is still stained red.

 

O’s hands drift across faint white lines, a brutal reminder that things could have been so different, before coming to settling on his hips. She traces the curve of his jaw, pulls his lips to hers. His fingers settle into the hollows between her ribs, the missing pieces of her puzzle.

 

  


               (Ben finds them hours later, brown limbs a stark contrast to the bright white linen, Chon cocooned in the safety of O’s arms. Ben, sweet Ben, blinks back hot tears and slides in beside them.)

 

 

 

 

15

 

I don’t know any more where I end and they begin.

 

 

 

 

16

 

  


It’s fucking perfect.


End file.
